Last Lessons #80 – GAIN AND LOSS

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: ...a time to weep,and a time to laugh; a time to morn, and a time to dance.”  Ecclesiastes 3:1,4 

GAIN 

During the twenty years that I was the Director of BSF, there was much gain.  Personally, Bob and I managed to provide weddings for our three daughters.  We then became grandparents for nine grandchildren.  There were many times we laughed and many times we danced!  Our grandchildren are all amazing, of course!  

But there was one gift that we gave each one of our grandchildren that probably helped them gain as much as anything we did for them.  As a high-school graduation present, instead of a material gift of some kind that grandparents usually give their grandchildren, we took them on a trip with us to Africa.  Although two of their mothers (Kathy and Tova) had been born in Africa, none of the grandchildren had seen first-hand a third-world country.  It has been interesting to see how God has used that trip they took at age 18 to impact their lives in different ways.   

I have learned that it is very important for young people to gain an understanding that there are those in the world who do not have the same advantages that they do.  There are many who are poor, in need, and who are different from us, and as much as possible, we must safely expose our children to the realities of life in poor countries.  Trips help. 

LOSS 

In 1984 Alverda Hertzler (the former administrator of BSF and Wetherell Johnson’s housemate) decided that she and Wetherell should move back to California.  Texas was too hot for Alverda (not surprising!), but Wetherell did not want to move because as she said many times, “I just want to be close to the work.”  Because she never married nor had children, BSF was her love, her baby, and her life.  Alverda prevailed however, and they moved to a house in Carmel, California.  I felt the loss of my mentor and my friend and Wetherell lost closeness to BSF and me.  She called me every day crying and asking if I could get her back to “the work”.  Her cancer came back so she lost her health as well as her joy.   

GAIN 

At the same time, I wanted to start BSF classes in Africa, so I asked the BSF Board if we could send missionaries to Africa to start classes.  They did not want to do that saying that BSF was not a mission-sending ministry, and that they did not believe that Africa wanted missionaries anymore.  None of them had ever been a missionary!  When I persisted, they said they would send Bob and me on a fact-finding trip to see if missionaries were really needed to start BSF classes in Africa. I suggested taking BSF staff members Bob and Kitty Magee, who had been missionaries in Zimbabwe under another ministry, with us.  The four of us went to East African and South African countries to investigate and found that in every place we visited they wanted BSF and missionaries to help them get started!   

LOSS 

When we were part-way through that investigative trip, I received a phone call from my BSF secretary in Texas telling me that Wetherell Johnson was dying.  We were in Kenya.  Knowing that we had more countries to visit, the four of us prayed that God would keep Wetherell alive until I could finish our trip and get home.  God answered our prayers.  We visited Uganda and then headed home.  That was December 18, 1986.  I arrived in San Antonio on December 19th, left for California on the 21st arriving in the evening to meet the chairman of the BSF Board, Dr. Ernest Hastings, so he and I could go to the hospital to see Wetherell.  

I will never forget the time I had with her that night after Dr. Hastings left.  I was able to tell her that we were going to put BSF classes in Africa and she weakly put her hand on my cheek and said, “Thank you.”  Then I asked her if she was looking forward to seeing Jesus.  She said, “Isn’t everybody?”!!  I left her about 10 PM.  She did see Jesus the next morning about 10 AM, December 22, 1986.  She was 76 years old. 

Alverda Hertzler went to be with the Lord on January 1, 1990, in Carmel, California.  She was 90 years old.   

It is true that those of us who loved and learned from them lost two amazing Christian women, but their legacy lives on to this day as much gain.  

“The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord.”  Job 1:21